Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the same photo but with the queen marked.

How to Find Her

There is a knack to finding the queen and nothing but practice will allow you to master that. However there are things to do, things not to do and things to look for that will increase your chances.

Things to do and things not to do

• Go quietly and gently – avoid crushing bees. Apart from the alarm pheromone any one of them could be the queen!
• Blowing smoke into the entrance or under the crownboard will set the bees running;
• Use little smoke and only when you have to;
• Use a water spray to calm the bees instead;
• Choose a day as early in the season as possible, the longer you leave it, the more crowded the hive will become – needle and haystack time. However, do be aware that if you damage the queen before there are drones on the wing it will be difficult to replace her;
• Choose a day when the bees are flying freely – there will be fewer of them sitting at home waiting to ‘help’ you.

Now…

• Carefully remove the roof then quietly crack the crownboard – more difficult if the day is cold and propolis is brittle.  Wait a minute for the bees to calm before lifting it.
• Check she isn’t on the crownboard then set it aside preferably on the upturned roof – just in case.
• Look down into the broodbox and locate the area where there are most bees – this is where the brood nest is and – as long as you’ve been gentle so far – this is where the queen will be.
• If the bees start to come up at you – spray them with water.
• Find a frame, away from the brood nest, which looks like  it will come out easily and gently remove it without rolling bees. If it turns out to have a bulge and you are rolling bees put it back and choose another;
• Make your way as quickly and quietly as possible towards the broodnest examining each frame as you go;
• When you find the pollen frame you will know that the next frame will have brood and possibly the queen so keep your eyes peeled;
• Look out for eggs – she is often on this frame;
• Look for young and emerging brood – she is often on such a frame – laying into vacant cells as the brood hatches and the bees clean the cells;
• Watch also for a frame where the bees are very quiet – there will be a high concentration of calming queen substance close to the queen;
• When lifting the frames – look first on the ‘dark’ side of the frame; the queen will instinctively move away from the light. Imagine yourself into that frame lifting situation and apply brainpower here because – words fail me.

Things to look for…

• The queen has rather different legs to the other bees – they tend to be reddish and ‘spider-like’.
• She is of course bigger than the workers – but not that much.
• Her abdomen is longer and more pointed with a swollen look.
• She moves differently to the other bees

 Marking the Queen

To mark the queen, you will need either nerves of steel or a crown of thorns to temporarily cage her.

Press it down carefully so her thorax is held within one of the squares of mesh in the cage and she is unable to move.

Do not squeeze her abdomen – that is the ‘business end’ of your queen; it is where she keeps the eggs and is very delicate and easily damaged so only press down on her thorax.

Dab a mark of the appropriate colour on her thorax then ease the cage up to let her stand up and walk about without smudging the paint on the mesh but keep her inside it for a couple of minutes while the paint dries. Click here for more on queen marking colours

 Clipping the Queen

There are many ways to clip the queen and which method you choose depends on your confidence, your manual dexterity and the steadiness of your hand – in fact this will have to be the subject of a different post.

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Perhaps this is why we call it an eke – we just spell it wrong; it should be eek. But note the rich yellow colour of dandelion honey – click the photos for a better look.

Click here for more on dandelions.

Three out of five hives in our demonstration apiary were like this. They had been overwintered with Apiguard ekes in place, probably because they were full of ivy honey at the time. The bees had used most of the ivy during the winter but spring inspections were delayed due to cold weather, then came a dandelion flow and they stuffed the space with dandelion honey and drone brood.

Granulated ivy honey could be seen in the outer combs but the bulk was dandelion honey. Each hive must have had 15lbs of honey to be scraped from the top bars.

Photographs courtesy of Derek Hanley.

Take a look at this frame of bees above – yes there are several things there that should put you on alert!

What you do, or don’t do, in response is the essence of beekeeping.

Click here for more on Colony Assessment and a downloadable sheet.

Hooper’s Five Questions:

1.  Does the colony have enough space?

2.  Is the queen present and laying properly?

3.  Development:

   Is the colony building up in size as fast as the others?

   Are there any queen cells?

4.  Are there any signs of disease?

5.  Have they got enough stores to carry them through to your next visit?

Does the colony have enough room?

Sometimes, the bees can pull in a super-abundance of ivy honey late in the year which far exceeds what they need to come through the winter.  Come spring when the queen needs space to lay – there simply isn’t any. This situation is termed – ‘honey-bound’.  If your bees are honey-bound you need to do something about it.

• If you have spare drawn frames you can remove a couple of the fullest frames of stores from the outsides and add the drawn frames to either side of the brood nest.
• If you don’t – then you will have to add foundation and – as long as they are strong enough – the bees will draw it as they need it. You could even feed them at this point if you think they need help.

The other reason for lack of space is when they have become so strong they have filled the box!

You should begin to add supers as soon as you find your bees covering the top frames when you remove the crownboard. Give supers early rather than late. If it is still chilly you can put a sheet of newspaper between the brood box and the queen excluder. This will keep them warm and give them options – if they need the space they will chew their way through and if they don’t they won’t.

You need to make a note of what you did/ need to do/ equipment to bring next time etc.

Is the queen present and is she laying properly?

I’m not going to tell you how to find your queen here. It is a knack and if you can’t find her then practice, practice, practice.

If you still can’t find her, then you must look for eggs. Once you find them, look for a nice even pattern with no few gaps. Eggs should be plumb centre of the cell and there should be only one per cell. Sometimes a new queen takes a little time to get the hang of this but a queen that has overwintered should know what she is doing.

If there is a paucity of eggs, a ragged scatter, or cells with lots of eggs sprinkled about in them there is probably something wrong. The first two would be signs of a failing queen – she could be a drone layer or just plain ‘old’. The last is a sign of laying workers.

• If you see her – note ‘Q’
• If you see her but there are no eggs – note ‘QP’
• If you see her and she is laying well – note ‘QPL’

What you do about these predicaments is the subject of another post. But you should know when you need to do something.

Development

Is the colony building up as fast as, or faster than, the others?

If you record the number of frames with brood present at each visit you can see how each colony is progressing week on week. If you have more than one colony you can compare them – a weak one will stick out like a sore thumb and so will a strong one. Early in the season it is a good idea to equalise. The aim of this is to slow down a very strong colony and build up a weak one.

Equalising

Take a frame or even two frames of brood from a very strong colony and put it into a weak colony. Give the strong colony empty frames or stores in exchange.

Be careful:

• Only give sealed brood to a weak colony because they will not be strong enough to rear larvae;
• Don’t give more brood than they weak colony can keep warm.

Take a nuc

Another option when bees are too strong is to take a nuc.

Are there any queen cells?

Record whether or not there are queen cells and at what stage.

1. Play cells – small empty cups;
2. Queen cells with eggs in them;
3. Queen cells with larvae.

Once you have play cells you must make sure your bees have plenty of space.

When you have queen cells with eggs in them you should know that the next time you come – or perhaps the time after that – there will be queen cells with larvae.

When you find these you are into swarm control and that is not the subject of this post.

Are there any signs of disease?

At each visit remember remember remember to keep an eye out for signs of disease. If you catch it early you can control it. If you don’t… you can’t.

Record what you see. Devise a shorthand. One that makes sense to you.

More on bee diseases here.

Have they got enough stores?

This one’s easy – just record the number of frames of stores and keep an eye on the weather forecast and the available sources of nectar and pollen.

You may need to think about feeding – even in the midst of the Irish summer. Bear it in mind and consider your options.

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Click here for more information on the Native Irish Bee.

Here’s how and it isn’t difficult. In fact it’s fun and very rewarding – you will see real results year on year. We used to have some really horrible bees here and only a few hives of them but each year they would chase us round the garden. Now, in the middle of summer I have around 25 hives of bees here and stings are rare.

So make a start this year.

Colony Assessments

First you will need to record aspects of your bees behaviour for an entire season. You will need to record this data because you will not be able to remember it. Click here for a link to a downloadable Colony Assessment record sheet and some instructions.

Colony Appraisals

Once you are armed with a sheaf of these – all filled in from the previous year – you can sit, midwinter, by the fire manipulating your data and transferring it into your Appraisal Sheet. Click here for a link to a downloadable Colony Appraisal sheet and some instructions.This sheet compiles all of your seasonal data from the previous year and tabulates so you can  compare your colonies objectively. Here’s one of my completed Appraisal Sheets for last year (2014). Click it for a better view.

From Data to Action…

How you filter your data to pick out the best colonies to breed from and those to cull is up to you. Here’s what I do – nice and simple:

• Hightlight (yellow) all cells in the ‘cells’ column with an N in other words all the colonies which didn’t make queen cells.
• Then highlight (yellow) the top 10 or so cells of the Docility, Pattern and Total columns.
• You can then pick out the best 30% of your colonies – the ones with 3 or more highlighted cells per row – Pink
• Then the bottom 30-40% of your colonies – the ones with one or less highlighted cells – Blue
• Bring all of your breeder colonies to your breeder apiary
• Take all of the indifferent – neither blue nor pink – colonies to out-apiaries and requeen when your Apideas start to bear fruit;
• Cull all the queens in the blue highlighted colonies but don’t do this until you start to see drone brood. If you cull queens at this time you take advantage of all their brood and bees which you then unite with your breeder colonies. Take care when you do this and make sure to leave them queenless for a week and knock off every single queen cell before you unite over newspaper. Do not look at this as losing colonies of bees because you are not – in a very short while the very strong doubled-up colonies you have created will be ready to split – using the method of your choice and you are back where you started but without those horrible queens.
• Avoid inbreeding by either buying in a few native queens or alternatively take a few of your Apideas to another beekeeper to get mated and/or swap grafting material. Make sure you like his bees, and the cut of his jib, first though!

In addition – you will have favourite queens which may not feature highly in this scheme but there are things about them that you have noticed. If this is the case you should take special care to note where they are (record it on the assessment sheet) and how they do and don’t just cull them because they didn’t score high enough.

Drone Rearing

Have as many bees as possible in your home apiary so there are lots and lots and lots of drones. With luck, the place will be so drone-heavy your virgins will get caught on the way out and won’t go straying with the blithering Buckfast boys. As you know – apiary vicinity mating is a characteristic of the native bee: in this way they manage to get their queens mated in those short flashes of sunshine that occur during otherwise extensive periods of foul weather such as we experienced in the summer of 2012.

Get your drone rearers making drones about 5 weeks before you are due to start your first grafts. Do this by adding in drone frames late March, early April and FEED. In this part of the world it is customary to use two brood frames – each fitted with half a sheet of wax – the bees will draw out drone comb to fill the gap.  If you have frames that have holes in the bottom half but are otherwise good – cut the bottom half out with a stanley knife. Add them at each side of the brood nest – about 3 frames in from each side. If you are on double brood boxes add in two per box.

Some people put two super frames into the brood box and allow the bees to draw drone comb off the bottom bars of these but in my experience the bees don’t seem to know when to stop and attach the combs to the sides of the box which can leave you with a right mess.

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The sheet below has been designed to record both Colony Assessment Data and routine beekeeping information from each visit. Click it for a better view. Scroll down and I’ll walk you through it…

Alternatively click here to download the same sheet in Excel format

Here goes:

It starts with boxes to record the queen colour (and number, if you number your queens), the hive number and the location.

The first 5 columns are to record the answers to Hooper’s five questions which guide the beekeeper through what he or she should be looking for on each visit – namely:

• Do the bees have enough space? This is important for swarm prevention and swarm control;
• Is the queen present and is she laying?
• How many frames contain brood?
• Is there any sign of disease?
• Do the bees have enough stores?

Click here for more on Hooper’s 5 questions

The next 7 columns headed A-G are based on Colony Assessment Criteria devised by the Galtee Bee Breeding Group and these are to assess the quality of each colony. Each trait is marked out of 5 with 5 being the highest mark and 0 the lowest with the exception of Chalkbrood which is an undesirable trait – if there is a lot of chalkbrood the mark is 0 and if there is none the mark is 5.

• Docility – are the bees nice and docile or do they want to kill you and your smoker?
• Steadiness – are the bees steady on the comb or are they running about;
• Brood pattern – is the brood pattern solid and unbroken or is it erratic or pepperpot? Pepperpot brood can be a sign of American Foul Brood OR inbreeding;
• Pollen – have the bees got lots of pollen? The urge to amass lots of pollen is a sign that the bees will overwinter well and can sustain themselves through long periods of foul weather;
• Comb building – do the bees draw beautiful even honey comb or is it ragged and abstract?

If you wish, you can add columns to record blackness and chalkbrood.

• Blackness – are the bees nice and black? There can be varying amounts of orange bees in amongst their black sisters. This is a mark of how many orange drones were involved in the mating of the queen and as such is a measure of interbreeding with non-native bees. If there is a high percentage of orange bees, the queens (however black they themselves might be and however pure their origins) should be culled before they begin to produce drones.
• Chalkbrood. A lot of chalkbrood is a sign that the bees do not have Hygienic Behaviour in their DNA and as such will be less likely to detect Varroa in sealed brood.

At the end of the season – the data from the assessment sheets can be analysed and the results tabulated for appraisal and comparison using a Colony Appraisal Sheet. Click here for more on Honey Bee Colony Appraisal.

Click here for How to Use this Stuff to Improve your Bees

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Once upon a time I used to keep mice. They don’t swarm but they are territorial and they do fight. If you try to introduce two mice, of any or either sex, by simply dropping one into the cage of the other they will fight. However, if you put the two of them together in a third cage they will get along like a house on fire. This is what I call ‘the third box principle’ and the same thing applies with bees.

Before we go any further I should state that the Third Box Principle is not an explanation of bee behaviour but it is a mental model which helps the beekeeper to ‘put a handle’ on what is observed. It is also a particularly helpful thing to know when you are in the thick of the latest bee conundrum and wondering what the hell to do next – it can give you extra options.

Here are some useful things to do with it:

Nucs

This is great when making up nucs. As you know, for a nuc you need a queen, 3 frames with brood on, 1 frame of stores and 1 frame with lots of pollen on it. Using the third box principle you can take frames of bees, pollen and stores from 1, 2, 3 or even 4 hives of bees to put into the nuc and they won’t fight. If you are afraid they will then just hold two frames together and watch them. If you want to put a queen in then it is probably best if you take her and the frame she is on and put her to one side of the nuc and then put another frame of her bees and brood next to her. Then fill the nuc with bees from several different hives. This has never failed with me.

Queen Rearing

If you are into queen rearing and want a really strong colony for your cell rearer then you can take a spare hive or two out with you to your out-apiaries fill it/them with frames of bees and brood taken from each of your strongest hives. Just make sure you know where your queens are! You can then quietly unite these boxes of confused bees with your rearer hives using the newspaper method.

Re-queening

This can also be used in requeening – which can be ticklish enough. If you have your new queen in a nuc:

• Move the nuc to one side:
• Place an empty, full size box and floor in its place;
• Transfer all the frames from nuc to the back of the full size box;
• Fill the space with bees from another queenless hive or bees you have gathered as per the method above.

This will work also work with bees which have resorted to laying workers.

Apideas

You can also use it combine Apideas, say one with a laying queen and two that you have removed the queens from – 9 frames in all. In this case you’ll  need a fourth box: a fresh empty Apidea plus an empty Apidea super.

Do this on the site of the queen right Apidea.

• Move the queen-right Apidea to one side and put the fresh empty box in it’s place without the feeder;
• Load the 3 frames, including the queen into the fresh box then fill the   remaining two spaces (where the feeder isn’t) with two frames and the adhering bees from one of the queenless Apideas;
• Set the super (extension – whatdoyoucallit) in place and fill it with the remaining frames and bees from the queenless apideas;
• Spray any bees remaining in the apideas with water, gently tumble them into a corner and pour them into the new double decker;
• Put an empty frame in the remaining space;
• Walk away and don’t look back.

Test it

If you are in doubt about this – don’t take my word for it. It works with my  bees but it might not work with yours and there are always exceptions. So test it – get your third box and put a couple of frames into it from different hives – but not too close together – then watch as you push them towards each other…

And always be aware of where your queen/s is/are!

Copyright © Beespoke.info, 2015. All Rights Reserved.

Swarm prevention is what you do before you find cells with larvae in them. If you find cells with larvae in them – you’re into swarm control.

The causes for swarming are gone into in these posts:

• Bee Basics: the Colony
• Bee Basics: the Queen Bee
• Queen Substance
• Bee Basics: Pheromones

Swarm Prevention Measures

Space – Make sure the bees always have loads of space. If they are covering the top bars of the box when you remove the crown board you’re late! You should have had another super on there well before then. If you think about it, 2,000 bees per day are hatching at the height of the season so if you visit your bees once per week then 14,000 will have hatched since the last time you were there and another 14,000 will hatch before your next visit. Super before you need to. Super for bees and hope for honey.

Ventilation – is less of an issue if you are using mesh floors. If you are on solid floors – set your hive the ‘cold way’ for the summer ie frames perpendicular to the entrance and open the feed holes in the crown board.

Early splits – any hives with 9 frames of brood are ripe for splitting. If you do this before the middle of May there is a chance you could get a honey crop from both halves and neither half should swarm. That’s the theory.

Method

1. First make sure there are no queen cells;
2. Get a nuc box;
3. Add  the queen – on the frame she is found;
4. Two more frames of brood with adhering bees;
5. A frame of pollen;
6. A frame of stores;
7. Shake in a few more bees;
8. Strap it up and move to an out apiary.
9. The other half will now make queen cells and unless it is very strong it shouldn’t swarm.

Equalise – This is a very useful in that it slows down your strongest hives and speeds up the weak one. Equalising the stocks in an apiary and getting them all to the same stage at the same time makes it easier to manage them. Here’s what to do:

• Go to your weakest hives first and leave out a broodless frame from each of them;
• Then go to your strongest hives;
• Remove enough frames of emerging or capped brood to add to the weak ones;
• Shake off the bees;
• Add the emerging brood into the brood nests of the weak hives and add the broodless frames into the strong hives;
• DO NOT ADD FRAMES OF EGGS OR LARVAE TO WEAK HIVES – THEY WILL NOT BE STRONG ENOUGH TO REAR THEM;
• Don’t add more than one frame at a time – there probably won’t be enough bees to cover them and you’ll be looking at chilled brood on your next visit.

Demaree – For strong colonies with 9-11 frames of brood and no queen cells in one or two brood boxes. If the colony is in one box – you’ll need another one equipped with drawn combs and foundation plus stores.

• Find the queen and set her to one side in a nuc box, on the frame she was found;
• Make sure there are no queen cells anywhere;
• If the bees are in a double brood box, rearrange the frames so that most of the unsealed-est brood is in one box (box B) – if there is any left over, try and put the sealed-est brood in the other box (box A);
• Leave a space in the middle of box A;
• Put the frame with the queen on it into the middle of box A with the sealed brood which will soon hatch leaving more space for her to lay into;
• Rebuild as follows – floor, box A, queen excluder, supers, queen excluder, box B, crown board, roof;
• If the bees are in single box, put the new box of fresh combs (minus the middle one) on the floor as box A, put the queen on the frame she was found, into the space in the middle then rebuild as above.

Snelgrove – we’ll have to get back to that one…

The book is called Swarming: It’s Prevention and Control by L.E.Snelgrove

Click here for Swarm Control

Click here for how to Demaree

If all this fails – click here for an easy way to hive a swarm

Copyright © Beespoke.info, 2014.  All Rights Reserved.

The forecast for the next few days is good, so with the trees in full bloom there is a good chance of a few pounds of honey.

For more sycamore information click here

If you click on this picture you should be able to see a close up of the snot green pollen loads.

Copyright © Beespoke.info, 2014.  All Rights Reserved.

The smoker works by diverting the bees’ attention from one perceived threat – you – to a greater fear – fire. However, there are ways of going through your bees without them even noticing you are there at all, let alone a threat. If you can master the following techniques you will be able tip-toe through your bees and observe them behaving naturally and enjoy your beekeeping much more.

However, things do go wrong so always have your smoker with you just in case, especially later in the year when your bees are feeling their own strength and have honey to defend.

• Light your smoker. Click here for more about that dark art;
• Get yourself a water sprayer and make sure it’s only got water in it – not insecticide;
• Have an empty nuc box close by;
• Wear lightweight rubber gloves – Marigolds are the best. Bees sting quite easily through them but they will allow you to be more dextrous and polite;
• Never allow yourself to get into the habit of crushing bees, if you do they will notice you and they will attack you and one day it will be the queen you crush;
• Pretend you are a bomb disposal expert and approach your hives with the respect you would give to a row of ticking bombs;
• Do not smoke the entrance but do make sure your smoker is still alight and give it a few puffs now and then to keep it going;
• Gently remove the roof and set it upside down on the ground by your side;
• Insert your hive tool under the crown board, place your other hand above it and prise it free all the way round, as gently and quietly as possible – twist it a bit if need be but do not lift it straight off;
• Once it’s free, rest a short while till you hear the stroppy buzzing die down;
• Hum a little tune;
• Now slowly lift off the crown board – do not shake off the bees, just place it bee side down on the upturned roof.  As long as you didn’t smoke the entrance it is unlikely your queen will be on the crownboard;
• Do not start scraping at the brace comb yet;
• Look into the top of your hive and note where the centre of the cluster is then locate a frame which looks like it might come free without a fight preferably well away from the broodnest;
• If your bees are coming up at you a bit spray them with a little water. This will prevent them from flying but will not divert them in the way smoke would so continue not to annoy them;
• Slow your movements;
• On no account crush bees. If you do, they will be after you and they will sting you and when they begin to sting you – you have begun to lose;
• Now start to free that frame. There is a way of doing this with the minimum of noise and vibration – use your loaf because words fail me here;
• Gently lift the frame out trying not to roll bees. Do not shake it. Make sure the queen is not on it and place it in the empty nuc.  If you need more space lift out another and place it in the nuc. No shaking!
• Alternatively, you can put the frame with the queen on it in the nuc for safe keeping.
• Proceed now to work your way through the hive frame by frame till you find the first frame with brood then start to look for the queen;
• Always check the dark side of the frame first as the queen will move away from the light;
• Unless you have disturbed the bees she will almost certainly be on a frame with eggs and you may even catch her in the act of laying. Let her finish before you mark her;
• Once you have found the queen and established that all is well, you can put the hive back together again.  This is where the smoker does come in really handy – blow a few puffs across the top bars, not down into the hive, just enough to send the bees down. Now you can scrape the top bars without chopping their heads off;
• If you need to shake bees – spray them a little to wet their wings first then shake away – the water will stop them flying back up at you.

There now – wasn’t that better?

If not – Click here for more about the beekeepers smoker!

Copyright © Beespoke.info, 2014.  All Rights Reserved.

Assemble everything you might need and have it close by:

• Spare brood box and floor;
• Spare frames – drawn and undrawn and a bucket to put your wax scrapings into;
• Spare crown board;
• Queen marking and clipping gear;
• Water sprayer, smoker or both.

1. Remember the primary aim of these first inspections is to establish all is well ie that the queen is laying normally and the bees have sufficient stores and space.
2. Secondarily and only if the bees (and the weather) are calm, you can look to replace old or broken frames and perhaps remove dead bees and detritus from the hive floor. The easiest way to do this is place the spare floor next to your victim and put the spare brood box on it then, one by one, gently lift each frame – checking for the queen as you go and place it into the fresh box. When all are transferred, move the fresh box and floor into the old position and close the hive with the fresh crownboard. You can now get scraping without upsetting too many bees. Aim to remove and replace two old black frames per year but remember, bees will not draw wax unless there is a flow  so if there isn’t – put frames with new foundation in at the back and move them in when there is.
3. Thirdly, if you find the queen – mark her but you could leave the clipping till later in the year.

You will be looking to make sure the bees have stores although you will have been regularly hefting the hive through the winter and should already have a good idea as to the status of the stores. This year things are looking good and they almost have too much stores so if they appear to be honey-bound with no space to lay then remove a couple of frames of stores and replace with drawn comb or foundation if a flow is probable.

If you are a gentle beekeeper with plenty of time and good native bees you should be able to go through your hives without smoke at this time of the year. If you can, so much the better especially if you are looking for the queen.

As an interesting alternative to lighting the blithering smoker, try a water sprayer instead, imagine you are on a bomb disposal mission and crush not one bee. Creeping through the hive this way you will hardly disturb the colony at all and the queen will be right where you expect her to be – on a frame of eggs and very young brood.

A word of caution though –  make sure there’s only water and not insecticide in that sprayer. Beware – it can happen!

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